Leinster need points? Yes, but not in the way you think.
It’s crunch time at the end of the Guinness Pro12 season and, as fans and media try to work out which teams will finish where, the log tables are out.
At half time on final day of the Pro12’s 2013/14 regular league campaign Leinster were losing 6-5 at home to Edinburgh. Glasgow had locked up their five match points with four tries inside 16 minutes so had reached 79 points, same as Leinster should they earn just one match point in a potential defeat.
Plenty thought Leinster were still ok, sure hadn’t they the advantage in both points difference and tries scored.
Be grand, they thought.
Not so.
The in-play table would show Glasgow ahead. Why? Well, the Pro12 doesn’t have points difference, or tries, as its first tiebreaker. No – the Pro12’s first tiebreaker is wins.
A few tweets from last season’s final day…
A few people asking about why current scores have Glasgow over Leinster despite latter having fairly large points diff & try advantages.
— Andy McGeady (@andymcgeady) May 10, 2014
Reason is that the first tiebreaker in the #RaboPro12 is matches won. Glasgow have already won 17, Leinster just 16.
— Andy McGeady (@andymcgeady) May 10, 2014
Similarly, the #Rabopro12’s “Matches Won” primary tiebreaker is why Ulster are home + dry in 4th place.
— Andy McGeady (@andymcgeady) May 10, 2014
A year later and here we are again: Leinster without enough wins. They could win their final three games by sixty points apiece and that +180 boost to the points difference column wouldn’t break the tiebreaker that the top four teams have over them should they finish on the same points.
The good news? That same tiebreaker might be better news for Connacht. And Munster are very happily motoring towards a home semi-final. Ulster too, perhaps?
That and more in today’s Irish Times column:
To bring the twice defending European champions to extra-time is no small thing. Sunday’s European Cup semi-final was, in truth, a dour affair. A messy, error-strewn grappling match that could easily have gone either way. In the end it will be remembered for one pass, one intercept, and a sense of what might have been as Toulon applied an extra-time chokehold to set up a repeat of the 2013 final. A new competition but the same cream has risen to the top.
That extra 20 minutes played on Sunday will not have helped Leinster’s Pro12 cause. Seven Leinstermen played the full 100 minutes in Marseilles; while next week’s break for the European finals will afford time to rest and heal, that’s a lot of fuel out of the tank before Friday night at Ravenhill.
Looking at the broader Irish rugby picture, the table is a pleasant sight. With just three rounds to play all four provinces are in the top six slots that merit automatic qualification for the Champions Cup; Treviso and Zebre will have their own battle for the seventh. Munster are in a happy place; a straightforward final three games to sew up a home semi-final. Bar the politics of glory, finishing top doesn’t really matter this season now that the final has already been placed in Ravenhill.
Comments
One Response to “Leinster need points? Yes, but not in the way you think.”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying...[…] Leinster also have to rely on getting more points, as they fall short on the Pro 12’s first tiebreaker – number of wins […]